Pigs, Affairs and Candy

In 1950, he was a 58-year-old maintenance worker for a candy company in Los Angeles. That doesn’t sound like the description of a fairly significant name in the world of theatrical animation. But that’s a snapshot of the life of Burt Gillett, director of the Three Little Pigs and Flowers and Trees.

Gillett tends to be a controversial figure, partly because of Shamus Culhane’s experiences with him at the Van Beuren studio. Culhane claimed Gillett was unstable, maybe even mentally ill. Animator/Director Dick Lundy told author Joe Adamson that Gillett spent loads and loads of money and never knew where his pictures were going.

Most of the material you’ll read about Gillett, not surprisingly, involves his work for Walt Disney. But I found a few stories in local papers from his time at Van Beuren, one of them praising the studio’s cartoons.

Gillett was born in Edmeston, New York on October 15, 1891. The 1892 Census has the family in Elmira. He liked art at an early age; the Connellsville, Pa. Daily Courier in 1907 reported he was in high school and won second prize in a weekly magazine’s drawing contest. Census documents reveal in 1910, he was living on West 57th in Manhattan and working as a cashier for a lumber company. He was attending the Art Students League at the time. He was a cartoonist on the Connellsville, Pa. Daily Courier when it reported on its front page of Jan. 25, 1911 he had eloped with the family maid. Louise Clawson had been employed for two weeks and was fired. Gillett married her a week later. “Love at First Sight,” proclaimed the sub-headline. He was 19. The “remarkably pretty girl, graceful of figure and a brunette of fascinating type” was 15.

Two years later, the Newburgh, N.Y. Directory tells us he was a cartoonist with the city’s Daily News. In 1916, Gillett landed a job in the Barre-Bowers cartoon studio. Gillett then opened his own $70,000 studio which took up the entire fifth floor of a building on 42nd Street in New York. The Connellsville Courier of Aug. 7, 1925 stating he had partnered with Ben Harrison, Dick Humor [sic] and Manny Gould, with brother Clyde as business manager of “Associated Animated Studio.” It made Mutt and Jeff cartoons and shorts called “Fun From the Press” for Literary Digest. It had a short life. Animation researcher and restorer Devon Baxter went through Harrison’s personal notes, and Harrison admits he used the company’s gilt-edge, but worthless, stock to plug a hole in his shoe.

In April 1929, Walt Disney visited Pat Sullivan’s studio where still-silent Felix the Cat cartoons were being made. Gillett was animating there and Disney hired him. Jack Cutting, an artist later put in charge of Disney’s foreign department, was hired in August that year, and reminisced in a 1973 newspaper story that there were 19 men on staff and Gillett was the oldest.

Gillett had tremendous success at Disney. Meanwhile, back in New York, Amedee Van Beuren was paying for third-rate cartoons being churned out by his staff. Why not entice the director of the most famous animated short to that time to take over and whip the operation into shape? So it was in early 1934 that Van Beuren hired Burt Gillett. “I was reluctant to leave California as I like the climate and my associates out there very much,” he told the Newburgh Daily News in a story published June 22, 1934. “However, business is business and this looks like a splendid opportunity, so here I am.”

Here’s a story from the Matt Richardson’s ‘Round Town column in the Elmira Star-Gazette, Dec. 3, 1935.

Leaves Newspaper Grind For the Newer Grind Of Color Cartoons
IT IS A GREAT THRILL for Burt Gillett, when he returns to Elmira periodically for a look around, and to ponder old times. . . These visits are a happiness tonic, too, an aid to longevity. It was 31 years ago that Mr. Gillett started out to make his way in the world and he chose newspaper work—of all things! . . . He landed in Newburgh, and for 10 years wrestled with court reporting for sustenance, while dabbling in art for the love of it. . . Older heads recognized Burt's ability, and advised him to stop trying to beat, his way through life on a typewriter and stick to his sketching. . . It proved good advice. . . The young man thought he liked cartooning, hurried to Hollywood, and tied up with Walt Disney of Mickey Mouse and "Silly Symphony" fame. . . He became a director of these amusing little characters and the artists who produce them. . . It was Gillett, if you please, who directed the "Three Little Pigs," which touched off a national hysteria of laughter. . .
ALL THIS HAPPENED 18 years ago. And now the former Elmiran is back east again, in Manhattan, associated with the VanBuren Studio, specializing in rainbow color movie cartoons. On his staff is a corps of 100 artists constantly turning, out this art that screen lovers have learned so much to admire. . . Burt doesn't draw any more. . . There is greater pecuniary reward in watching others do the actual work and seeing that they do it correctly. . . For a while, out West, Mr. Gillett was able to return to Elmira only twice, these visits being separated by a 10-year interim. . . But now, from New York to Elmira, is an easy "jump," proven by the fact he has made the jaunt three times the past year. . .
THE MOVIE DIRECTOR'S FATHER was Lewis M. Gillett, who for years—until 1904—when the family moved to Pennsylvania, conducted a jewelry store at the corner of West Water and Main Streets—present site of the Les Kelly drug store. . . In there Burt strolled, closed his eyes and tried to look back in retrospect to the days of his boyhood. . . He endeavored to imagine all around him were clocks, silver and pewter instead of ivory sets, porus plasters and pills. . . And was fairly successful—a dream boy for the moment. . . Burt has never been quite weaned from Elmira, you know. . . He sees many old landmarks, far too few old friends, and there comes a fund of reminiscences which he delights to peddle around to those willing to lend an ear and capable of remembering, perhaps.

Animator Izzy Klein was at Van Beuren at the time and said Gillett was constantly firing people not up to his standard. As well, Gillett brought Tom Palmer with him. Palmer was an ex-Disneyite who was picked up by Leon Schlesinger in 1933 and made production manager. Sound department head Bernie Brown told historian Michael Barrier that Palmer was inept at putting together a story, giving vague instructions to “do a funny bit of business here.” At Van Beuren, the two of them came up with the dreadful live action/animation “Toddle Tales,” then invented the unhilarious Molly Moo Cow.

But Van Beuren was going in the right direction, though Tom Sito’s book on animation unions, Drawing the Line points out “big sections of the shorts were thrown out as substandard [by Gillett] and [artists] were forced to work unpaid overtime hours to replace them.” But it’s obvious the studio’s animation improved with people like Carlo Vinci, Bill Littlejohn, Pete Burness and Jack Zander. The studio had licensed Felix the Cat and The Toonerville Trolley characters. Under writers like Joe Barbera and Dan Gordon, they could have been very funny, rollicking cartoons. But RKO, which had a stake in Van Beuren, decided in 1936 it was better simply to kill the studio and release Walt Disney’s shorts instead of putting ersatz Disney “Rainbow Parade” cartoons in theatre. Gillett went on a month-long trip to England, returning in August 1936 and immediately took a job again with Walt Disney, who had said when Gillett left in 1934 “Who needs him?”.

Meanwhile, Gillett lost interest in that “brunette of fascinating type.” The Bergen Evening Record told all in its issue of Jan. 20, 1937. The clipping to the right below is from the Dec. 22, 1936 edition of the Passaic Herald-News. It should be of note to people who doubt Culhane’s story of instability and reports that Gillett was a souse.

Gillett, Aide To Disney, Ordered To Pay Alimony
Edgewater Woman Wins $70 Weekly From Mickey Mouse Cartoonist In Separation Action
Burton F. Gillett, cartoonist for Walt Disney, is under court order today to pay $70 weekly alimony to Mrs. Louise Gillett, 647 Undercliff Avenue, Edgewater, and $750 counsel fees as result of her recent separate maintenance divorce suit decree.
WORKS IN HOLLYWOOD
Gillett, who is working at Disney's Hollywood studios, also was ordered by Advisory Master N. Demarest Campbell in Chancery Court at Hackensack to give his estranged wife half the income from his property. He owns a $15,000 house in Edgewater and a $40,000 home in Los Angeles.
According to the petitioner her husband misconducted himself with Miss Edith [Ethel Vera] Falkenberg, model in his office, in an apartment at 360 Central Park West, New York, on various dates.
Although Gillett earns as much as $325 a week he failed to provide proper support for his wile, she charged at the trial.
Jan. 10, 1936, Mrs. Gillett took part in a raid on her husband's apartment and said she found him partly dressed with Miss Falkenberg. The couple have a child and Gillett wants to marry the girl, his wife testified.
The defendant did not appear in court to contest the accusations but he was represented by Vincent J. Aiken of Fort Lee.
Lawrence A. Cavinato, counsel for Mrs. Gillett, contended the artist failed to support his wife in the manner to which she was accustomed and entitled after he became friendly with Miss Falkenberg.
The couple was married Jan. 25, 1911, at Cumberland, and have one grown son.
Another of Mrs. Gillett's allegations was that her husband drank excessively and on one occasion when she protested said he wanted to stay drunk so he wouldn't have to look at "your homely mug.”
Trial of the case took two days.
Mrs. Gillett declared that her husband threatened to kill himself when she refused to grant him a divorce to permit him to marry the Falkenberg girl. On a vacation cruise to Europe last summer he even threatened to throw her overboard if she declined to divorce him, Mrs. Gillett told the court.

The divorce was granted in December 1937 and Gillett took out a marriage license with his former employee the following March. There was a 20-year age difference between the two.

In September 1938, Gillett was gone from Disney and began writing and directing for Walter Lantz. He lasted about a year; his final cartoon was released March 4, 1940. Lantz explained to Joe Adamson that Gillett never properly laid out his cartoons like other directors meaning he never knew how long they were. “Gillett never knew where he was going; he’d wind up with a nine-hundred-foot picture,” as opposed to the usual 600 feet which meant less animation time, less inking and painting, and less money. Lantz was big on saving money. “After he made a few of those, I said, ‘Burt, you’re going to put me out of business.’”

In 1940 his occupation in the Burbank City Directory is “writer.” His World War Two Draft Card, dated Apr. 25, 1942, states he was employed at McDonnell’s Restaurant. Gillett and his former paramour divorced and he married Theckla Virginia Monberg of Huntingdon Park in 1943. Oddly, he showed up in Connellsville in August 1949, with the Daily Courier reporting he was visiting his ex-wife’s sister. The 1950 Census indicates he and Virginia were separated (she died in 1953).

Gillett had one more last hurrah in animation. In April 1961, the San Francisco Museum of Art screened a number of films, including The Three Little Pigs. Gillett was invited to attend.

With nary an obituary, at least that I can find, Gillett died in Panorama City on December 28, 1971.

What Happened Bugs?

Frank Tashlin didn’t make many Bugs Bunny cartoons, did he?

Actually, he made twice as many as the Art Davis unit. Two. The first was The Unruly Hare, released in 1945 (the last with Tashlin’s name on it) and Hare Remover, which came out the following year.

This cartoon is one of several from the mid-‘40s that has a garish edit in it. Elmer Fudd is yelling “Hurray! Hurray! I twapped him” with Bugs looking like he’s about the knock on Elmer’s derby. This is a pretty butt-ugly in-between.



There’s a quick cut to Elmer and Bugs in completely different positions. Not only that, it sounds like the soundtrack has been sliced. There’s a quick chopping of Elmer’s dialogue and the next scene sounds like it begins in mid-cue. Maybe someone has researched what happened. (There are similar obvious edits in Bob Clampett’s The Big Snooze.



And what’s with the gap-toothed Elmer and Bugs?



Tashlin had left Warners in August 1944 to work for Morey and Sutherland, two months after it bought Leon Schlesinger's cartoon studio.

The credited animators are Dick Bickenbach, Izzy Ellis, Cal Dalton and Art Davis.

The official release date of the cartoon is March 23, 1946. As usual, several theatres screened it earlier.

Flip Arrives

The best news you will read today, cartoon fans, is Thunderbean Animation has finally completed its restoration of all 38 Flip the Frog cartoons and has released them on Blu-ray.

I have never laughed at a Flip cartoon. Not that I recall. I don’t know how many audiences in the early ‘30s laughed at them, either. But ignore that. Buy this set.

Thunderbean takes extremely meticulous care in any of its restoration projects. Everyone who worked on this loves old animation and strives to give cartoon fans the best. An incredible amount of work went into these discs—which took longer to make than the actual cartoon series. Flip could not have been in better hands.

If Thunderbean hadn’t taken on this set, nobody else would have. There simply isn’t the profit and, frankly, I doubt a large corporation would have spent the time hunting down and comparing film elements to pick and choose the best. Thunderbean, time and time again, has taken animation from B-list studios residing on poor prints in the public domain scrap-heap and made them presentable and watchable again. An example on this set: The Cuckoo Murder Case has a fine atmospheric opening that will be a treat to see fully restored.

Steve Stanchfield's team cares enough to provide bonus material as well. Commentary tracks? Yes! J.B. Kaufman liner notes? Yes, again! Or, as Flip would say, “Damn!”

My congratulations and thanks to those who took the time and care to work on this Blu-ray.

Click here for a link to the Thunderbean Shop.

Note: this is an unpaid, unsolicited endorsement. I receive nothing. I am simply a fan of old cartoons and feel this set is worth owning.

Turkey Surprise

The background art is just tremendous in Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor. Even watching what must have been a semi-washed-out print on a black-and-white TV in the early ‘60s, I really appreciated it. Adding to it were the 3D-like scenes with backgrounds and foregrounds at moving at different speeds than the animation.

Watching a restored version in full Technicolor is a real treat. The background artists outdid themselves with the various colours. Here’s a great example, with a rock-skull and gnarled tree with a face.



This is part of a gag that I remember liking 60-some-odd years ago. Sindbad punches Popeye upward. Sindbad’s huge rokh grabs him, circles once (the animators had to draw the bird’s underside as the shot looks up) and flies into a distant volcano to finish him off.



Notice how the background the same setting is different than the one in the first frame. The Fleischers spared no expense.

Popeye's a goner. Or is he? A tornado whisks its way from the volcano to the foreground and provides the answer.



Here’s the background painting under the first set of titles. What a shame none of the background artists got credit.



Willard Bowsky led the animation crew on this, with Ed Nolan and George Germanetti getting screen credit.

Alan Reed

When you think of Allen’s Alley, Senator Claghorn may come to mind. Or maybe Mrs. Nussbaum. You probably don’t think of the actor the Alley was built around, even though he’s known to some who have never heard of Fred Allen.

Allen featured ham poet Falstaff Openshaw on the Texaco Star Theatre, and when he created the Alley, Falstaff anchored the segment. Openshaw appeared in character as a guest on other radio shows and later had his own 5-minuter on ABC radio.

Openshaw was played by a man better known to people today as the voice of Fred Flintstone, Alan Reed.

We’ve talked about Reed’s Hanna-Barbera career over on the Yowp blog. He had a rather extensive career on radio before that and, as this story in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle of Nov. 23, 1941 indicates, he had a pile of other careers.

Alan Reed, He’s on vacation and That Makes Him Pretty Happy
But Again in Theater Guild's New Play He's Badly Dressed
We offer Alan Reed as an alarming example of what can happen if you let your son go-to journalism school.
Mr. Reed is the gentleman who is presently to burst upon Broadway as the bombastic Italian farmer in "Hope for a Harvest," the Theater Guild comedy by Sophie Treadwell, which opens at the Guild Theater Wednesday evening, and which presents, in addition to the redoubtable Reed, Mr. and Mrs. Frederic March.
The journalism school where Reed's whacky history starts is Columbia. How he escaped from it nobody knows. But one day he turned up in Oklahoma City, befriended by a candy manufacturer named Ralph Rose. This chocolate bar king dabbled in theatricals. He dabbled a bit too much, however. With a stock company, that included Reed as leading man, he lost his shirt.
And so Mr. Rose, his 12-year-old son and his great and good friend, Mr. Reed, came to New York. They had $600 when they arrived. A bit of dice manipulation (at which Mr. Rose Jr. was said to be proficient) ran it up to $28,000. Whereupon Mr. Reed and the Messrs. Rose started a candy business. Pecan pralines were the staple and the business prospered until hot weather, when the pralines turned what Reed describes as an "interesting gray color, like second-hand oatmeal."
That was about 1923. Two years later found our Mr. Reed acting in the Glencairn cycle of Eugene O'Neill at the Provincetown Theater. He doesn't remember why. Nor why he became, somewhere along the way from there to here, intercollegiate wrestler (that was at Columbia, but we forgot to mention it at the time), shipping clerk, real estate salesman, gym instructor and newsreel commentator. He also became manager of the Luxor Health Club, which, considering his fondness for sleeping late and Lindy's pastries, doesn't seem to fit.
At any rate, like some other misguided people, he eventually wandered into radio, where he became the No. 1 assistant comic. Cantor, Jolson, Jessel, Burns and Allen, and now Fred Allen—all have had his services. (On Fred A's current program he is Falstaff Openshaw, the Bowery Bard, as well as Clancy the Cop on "Duffy's Tavern.")
But where he really shines—ethereally speaking—is crime. He sat down one night and. having nothing better to do, totaled his radio-crime career for 1940. During the year, he estimated, he stole slightly more than $12,000,000, killed 37 people, participated in five kidnapings, perpetrated three felonious assaults and made one attempt to pull the badger game. In all of these cases he was convicted, killed by the police in a dark alley, driven to suicide when trapped by his own brutal actions or dispensed with in some satisfying way. Satisfying, at least, to the code of radio morality.
But if he is radio's baddest boy, he is also its busiest. Averaging a total of 25 to 30 radio shows weekly, it is an expensive luxury for Alan Reed to enter a Broadway play, for he has to give up his very lucrative crime-and-comic chores on radio.
But with "Hope for a Harvest," the gentleman is quite willing to forego radio profits in favor of the theater, and for a couple of excellent if unartistic reasons.
"With this job," Mr. Reed confides gravely, "I am working myself out a nice little vacation, a very nice little vacation. And why? Because here at last is a part I can throw my stomach into." He patted his facade. Did we mention that there is a good deal of Mr. Reed? Two hundred and thirty pounds at last counting. "Also I can let my hair grow. This it not like the last time. This is not Saroyan."
He was referring to his last Broadway stint, in the Mad Armenian's play, "Love's Old Sweet Song," which the Guild produced two seasons ago. In that epic Mr. Reed was the philosophical Greek wrestler, Stylanos Americanos. His hair was cropped to a fuzz and he had to train down to 210.
"Was I healthy? I have never been so healthy. I hope I am never so healthy again. Gym all the time, No Lindy's. No Lindy's pastries. But now—!”
Now Mr. Reed is playing Joe de Lucchi, a middle-aged Italian with plenty of girth and a nice shock of hair. Mr. R. is barely in his thirties and worries because his nice middle-aged makeup never seems to register on photographs. "I look young," he moans in despair. "I look, you might almost say, juvenile! Always before I have been athletic. For business reasons. Now I can be athletic or I can skip it. So if I feel like it I'll be athletic. Otherwise—no."
Up to now it seems to be no. Except for handball, which Mr. Reed plays with furious enthusiasm, he is taking himself "a nice little vacation." Of course, he is working a little in "Hope for Harvest," but he gets such a kick out of the part he doesn't regard it as work. His only complaint about the part is the clothes he has to wear. They are not, says Mr. Reed, very snappy.
"Now here is the situation," he explained morosely, "I like clothes. You know what I mean? I am fond of them. I have one of the best tailors in New York. I have beautiful suits. I wear them like Esquire. So what happens? One the radio nobody sees me. I get a job on the stage in 'Love's Old Sweet Song'—and I wear a pair of trunks and the hair on my chest I was born with. So I think—Never mind, next time we'll wear clothes. So what happens? I get into ‘Hope for a Harvest,' and I wear overalls! Can you win? But outside of that I got no complaints. It's a swell show. I got a swell part. I'm happy."
So "Hope for a Harvest" has made Mr. Reed happy. He has made the author and the Theater Guild happy. All that remains is for the audience to be happy. Mr. Reed nods knowingly, and says they will be.

“Hope For a Harvest” was a flop. It ran for a month at the August Wilson Theatre. Radio Mirror reported Reed took the role to attract movie scouts, but then the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and he was afraid to move his family to the West Coast.

But Reed found more stage work. This Eagle story is from Dec. 13, 1942.

Alan Reed, the Real Pirate, Is Also Broadway's Busiest Man
By ROBERT FRANCIS
This department claims to have found Broadway's busiest actor. Eight times a week he is the paunchy ex-pirate from whom Alfred Lunt steals Lynn Fontanne up at the Martin Beck and on Sundays he Broad a's his way through the Fred Allen program with the poetic quips and cranks of Falstaff Openshaw.
"But Saturday is Alan Reed's high spot. In the morning he motors leisurely from the Reed mansion in Riverdale (when he has the gas), to arrive at Radio City for 11:30 rehearsal of "Abie's Irish Rose." Alan is Papa Solomon Levy in this one. The rehearsal lasts until 1:30, which leaves just time to get over to the Martin Beck and make up for the matinee. At 5:30 he is back at the studio for more rehearsal and the following broadcast, which is over at 8:30.
Then down a waiting elevator and into a waiting cab pops Mr. Reed. Slithering across Broadway he sticks on his drooping mustache and goatee-and when the curtain goes up at 8:40 at the Martin Beck, Miss Fontanne is serenely fanning a hammock-sleeping "Pirate" on the stage.
It almost seems that it must be done with mirrors, but Alan is an inventive cuss. He doesn't remove his makeup when he finishes the matinee. He has had a double breasted suit turned to zoot proportions so that it goes over and off the pirate costume. This and a titanic dickey turn him into Mr. Levey.
Of course, after the theater his time is practically his own. He just has to taxi back to the studio for the repeat broadcast.
"It isn't mirrors," he grinned the other night, "but it does take stamina—and stamina is something I got a lot of. Did you know I used to be intercollegiate wrestling champion at Columbia?"
Strangler Reed rears up in his dressing room shorts and exhibits a mighty torso.
"Of course," he apologizes, "I'm softened up now. But you get the idea."
Your correspondent does. He would not care to tangle with Mr. Reed.
Incidentally, you may remember Alan as the hookah-smoking Greek grappler of Saroyan's "Love's Old Sweet Song" a season or so back.
"I enjoyed that one," he says. "It was such fun spilling Walter Huston."
Alan hasn't been on Broadway half as much as he should during recent years. Radio has kept him too busy. He broke into show business back in 1927 at the old Provincetown Playhouse, but except for an occasional play, most of his dialect comedy has been devoted to the air waves and comic commentating for Pathe News. In between times he managed to run his own gymnasium.
"Had to give that up, though, a while ago," he grins. "I work out once in a while up at Reilly's—but no more wrestling.
"What do I want to do now? Man, I'm satisfied. Two radio shows and this play. And I think I'm going to do a movie this Summer. The war's got 'em so they finally need guys like me out there."
If the movie doesn't come through, we'll bet Mr. Reed figures out something else to fill in the time. He's not a guy to sit still.

Reed appeared off and on in movies—we’ll spare you a list of them; you can find that elsewhere—returning to work with Fred Allen during fallow periods.

And, yes, we could mention Life With Luigi, Baby Snooks and other radio shows but we will point out that Reed started out in radio using his real name, Teddy Bergman. He gave a short biography to one of the syndication serves and the story to your right appeared in newspapers in mid-1932. Bergman also appeared in television at that time, meeting actress Finette Walker on W2XAB. They enjoyed a long and happy marriage.

For a time, Reed was also on the Board of Directors of AFRA, the radio actors union, with fellow Allen’s Alley denizens Minerva Pious and John Brown, and Verna Felton, who played his mother-in-law on The Flintstones.

The ad you see above is for a company Reed set up after network radio wound down and he hunted around for television work. He ended up handing operation of it to his son after Bill Thompson was unable to do the voice of a caveman, and Hanna-Barbera had to find someone else to play Fred Flintstone. That gave him a steady pay cheque (especially from commercials as Flintstone) for the rest of his life.

Running From a Lawnmower

Any guesses what this is?



It’s the back of Spike’s head as he runs away in perspective from a lawnmower-riding gopher in the 1950 MGM cartoon Garden Gopher.

Here are some frames of Spike running away and the gopher (top-of-head shot first) after him.



And now the other way.



Some of Avery’s favourite gags, like the “drag-arousal-chase” also found in Ventriloquist Cat; the “huge-hole-in-body” as is Señor Droopy, Ventriloquist Cat and The Chump Champ, and the “explosion-creates-blackface” found in Droopy’s Good Deed show up. Rich Hogan helped Avery with gags, and the animators on this short are Grant Simmons, Mike Lah and Walt Clinton.

Hidden Inside Gags, UPA Version

Warner Bros. cartoons had names hidden in the backgrounds, and other studios did the same thing.

Here’s an example from the UPA short Barefaced Flatfoot (1951) starring a somewhat tetched Mr. Magoo.



On the billboard advertising the movie “Scandale” (opening Oct. 14) are the names Novotny and Pilchard. Who they were, I don’t know.



Another billboard advertises a talk by “Dr. Julius Engel. Jules Engel gets the “color” credit for this cartoon.



The sign on one building is a little unusual. The name is “Danch.” Bill Danch was a cartoonist and radio writer whose name you’ll find on some early ‘60s Walter Lantz cartoons with Tedd Pierce. He is not on the credits for this short, but he co-wrote Grizzly Golfer and Wonder Gloves, both UPA cartoons that were released the same year as this one. Danch later wrote the syndication Jim Backus Show, where Backus runs a newspaper.



Left to right, director John Hubley, designer Abe Liss, John Hubley (backwards) and Sherm Glas (backwards), the unit manager.



Hartman’s Pipe Shop. This could be for C.L. Hartman, an animator who worked at several studios, including Disney and Hanna-Barbera. He, too, got animation credits at UPA for Magoo’s Moose Hunt (1957) and Scoutmaster Magoo. Hartman also worked for Hubley at Storyboard, Inc.

Magoo is no chortling, Rutgers-reminiscing softie hawking beer or light bulbs in this cartoon. He decides to become a detective (with an appropriate radio mystery show organ in the background) and even gets nasty with Waldo.

This was the fifth cartoon in the series, before Columbia ordered UPA to includes Magoo’s name in every short.

40th Birthday Shower

Jack Benny turned 40. He didn’t like the idea but, in the end, it made no difference.

It was just like the Maxwell. The car, in the Benny radio plot-line, was donated for scrap during World War Two. After the war, it was back. No one cared. Jack kept doing Maxwell jokes and people laughed.

Jack was convinced to turn 40 on the air in 1958. So he had a 40th birthday party on the Shower of Stars show on CBS-TV. Jack then simply went back to doing ‘39’ jokes and people laughed until the day he died.

1958 was some 26 years after he began his radio show. And he kept right on going. One veteran columnist who analysed Jack’s continuing popularity was Ben Gross of the New York Daily News. Like pretty well all the New York critics, Gross enjoyed the Benny on-air high jinks. In promoting the Shower of Stars show, he explained the reasons Benny continued to appeal to viewers after years in the entertainment business. In this story, Gross latches onto the canard that Benny never appeared on radio before his guest shot with Ed Sullivan in 1932. Gross was reviewing radio before then, and opened his February 20, 1929 column praising Jack's emceeing on the RKO radio series on the NBC Red Network.

Stars Hail Jack Benny On His '40th' Birthday
Out in CBS-TV City, Hollywood, the boys and girls readying themselves for one of the biggest parties of recent years last night. Jack Benny was slated to announce that he is now 40 years old, during the Shower of Stars program, 8:30 to 9:30.
This, the evening before St. Valentine's Day, which is his actual birthday. The Waukegan Fiddler, now really 64, has finally decided to abandon the legend that he is still only 39, an event worthy of the notice of every comedy lover in America.
As the program listings have already informed you, a lengthy roll of stars who were once or still are features, of the Benny show had been lined up for the event. Mary Livingstone, Van Johnson, Paul Douglas, Dennis Day, Bob Crosby, Frank Parker, Don Bestor, Mel Blanc, Andy Devine, and the Sportsmen Quartet were among the names mentioned. And, of course, there could be many more.
In this connection, some of the publicity released about the event said that Benny "got his start in broadcasting on the radio program of George Olsen, the orchestra leader back in 1932.” It's true that Jack appeared on George’s show at that time.
But to set the record straight, I must point out that Benny's first appearance on the air took place via Ed Sullivan's program that year. It was the comedian's debut on radio.
Four Lifetimes
That was 36 years ago—three or four lifetimes as far as broadcasting is concerned. And one may well ask: "Why has Jack Benny lasted so long? Why is he one of the few radio comedians—Milton Berle, Burns and Allen, Red Skelton and Ed Wynn are among the others—who have been able to survive in television?"
The first and most obvious answer that comes to mind is that Jack Benny is a great comedian. In the opinion of many including this column he is unequalled by any other current funmaker in poise, timing and the art of the double-take. But there have been and still are others almost as good and yet they have failed to on uninterrupted year after year with like success.
I think you will find the key to Benny's phenomenal survival, despite the countless vogues in comedy that have come and gone, in a statement he made to me many years ago while he was starring here at the Roxy Theatre. He said, "Above all, I'm a good editor."
Cuts Ruthlessly
What he meant by this is that he not only works closely with his veteran writers and has an almost unerring understanding of the material, the types of scripts that are best for him. He cuts ruthlessly lines that are out of key with the Benny character, even though these might win big laughs. He uses only dialogues and scenes that bolster his comedy personality.
And this comedy personality, it should be emphasized, is a true bit of character creation. It may be obvious or simple; but nevertheless it's a living, breathing character.
Benny, in the minds of millions of radio and TV fans all through these years, has been a lovable, violin-playing penny pincher who always manages to come out on the short end of any deal. No matter whom he meets or what happens, that is the image that remains. He's likeable, laughable—and human.
This basically, is his secret. And it undoubtedly explains why through the years of depressions and booms, wars, revolutions and so-called peace, the Waukegan Fiddler has managed to stay on top. May he do so for a long time to come!

The 40th birthday show is an odd one. It’s mostly nostalgic than comedic. There is a parade of people Jack worked with and few of them are given anything to do. Van Johnson seems so out of place as he was no more a regular on Benny’s show than Sarah Churchill. Kenny Baker was noticeable by his absence. George Olsen turned down an invitation to appear. Eddie Anderson collapsed in rehearsal and his routines had to be re-worked). And I’m afraid I’m not big on singing/dancing tribute numbers. The best part came near the end when Phil Harris ad-libbed a zinger at Jack who collapsed in laughter; it shows you how much Phil was missed when he left the show.

If you haven't seen it, the show should be embedded below if it hasn't been taken down. It opens with Art Gilmore speaking.

Mercer and Matalone

He may have voiced more cartoons uncredited than anyone in the business.

Even at a time when Daws Butler and Don Messick’s names were appearing on televisions in the early 1960s, his was not. And, his obit says, he voiced 220 Popeye cartoons for the small screen in a year.

We’re talking about Jack Mercer.

Of course, this doesn’t include 240 Felix the Cat TV cartoons for Trans-Lux where he did every voice. Nor the dozens and dozens of theatrical shorts for the Fleischer and Famous (Paramount) studios going back to the mid-1930s.

As you likely know, Mercer did get screen credit in the glory days of cartoons—for stories. He was an inker who was moved into the story department near the end of the Fleischer studio in the early ‘40s.

Mercer also got very little public press until the era of book-writing cartoon historians. One time was the serendipitous occasion when he married the Miami studio voice of Olive Oyl, Margie Hines, in 1939.

Another occasion can be found in an unusual place. He was mentioned in a feature story in an Australian newspaper, the Macleay Argus of Kempsey in New South Wales. It also sums up how a cartoon was made at the Fleischer studio. The story appeared in the issue of May 20, 1938; the local theatre was showing Puddy’s Coronation, a 1937 Terrytoon.

Something interesting is the revelation of the voice of Wimpy in the cartoons of the time. Frank Matalone was an imitator who won an amateur contest on Fred Allen’s Town Hall Tonight of April 15, 1936, imitating a traffic whistle, a cuckoo clock, a pair of rolling dice, and the opening of the bottle. I suspect he came to the Fleischers’ notice because his last imitation was Jack Mercer as Popeye, singing the spinachk-eating sailor’s theme song. You can hear him below at around the 49:55 mark. The Brooklyn Times-Union reported at the time he had done the Popeye impression at an amateur night a month earlier at the RKO Albee



(As an aside, the next amateur is a harpist who plays the Friz Freleng favourite “Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms.” No one explodes).

Mae Questel rates a mention as Betty Boop and Olive Oyl but the singer who portrayed Bluto is left out of the story. Gus Wicke was part of a long-time “Gay 90s” revue at a New York restaurant. E.O. Costello put together a fine, annotated biography at the Cartoon Research site.

Substitute the word “newspaper” for “screen” in the third paragraph.

WHO IS THE VOICE OF POPEYE?
HOW CARTOONS ARE MADE
For many years the animated cartoon has been a highlight during most programmes, and has introduced many figures that have left favourable impressions in everyone’s mind, the most important of these being “Popeye,” “Betty Boop,” “Felix the Cat" and “Mickey Mouse.”
To-day we have “Popeye” the spinach eating sailorman, a name that is widely known throughout the world, not only as a movie cartoon, but also as a newspaper comic strip. “Popeye” made his debut in screen cartoons in the year 1929 [sic] in “Thimble Theatre,” starting as a supporting character. Gradually he gained popularity, eventually becoming the star of what is known to-day as the greatest cartoon figure.
Included among the many artists are three people whose voices have made you laugh very heartily, and yet their names and features are absolutely unknown. That deep-chested voice, which bellows forth continual challenges to Bluto, Popeye’s most dangerous opposition for Olive Oyl's heart, is furnished by Jack Mercer, while Mae Questel puts all the “thrill appeal” into her pleas when Olive Oyl is the cause of some argument between these two tough men.
Olive Oyl was one of the original characters created by Segar in 1919, and it was not until many years later that she saw the light of the screen in the talking pictures. Mae Questel, who is partly responsible for the success of this beauty (if we may say that) is also talented in such a way that she puts over the voice for another character, “Betty Boop.” It was thought for quite a long period that the voice of “Betty” was that of an old screen favourite, Helen Kane, and owing to this public opinion, Miss Kane tried to sue Miss Questel, but her efforts proved futile, so Miss Questel still carries on with both jobs.
Again in 1929 Mr. E. C. Segar introduced another personality known as “Wimpy,” and the vocal substitute is Frank Matalone.
The making of these cartoons does not, as most people think, incorporate about a dozen people; on the contrary, it necessitates a regiment of workers, each one skilled at his particular job, working in close contact with the others. Altogether this one reel cartoon passes through the hands of 15 different departments, which, all told, amounts to 200 persons.
The first to deal with “Popeye” is the scenario department. Writing themes for cartoon characters presents quite a different problem from that of the human actor. They must concentrate on themes that are farcical and yet humorous. From this department the finished scenario is sent to the animators.
The boys (and girls, too) who do the original drawings, are the highest paid employees in this type of work. It is on the efforts of these people that the success of the whole cartoon is placed. The expressions, the actions of each measured foot, is entirely their responsibility, and each position requires not only one drawing, but perhaps a dozen, to give the full natural appearance of life.
As mentioned previously, many drawings must be made before a cartoon can become really animated. The average one-reel cartoon takes 15,000 separate drawings. If a scene requires 12 sketches to give complete naturalness, the head animator may draw, say, 1, 5, 10 and 12, and the “inbetweener” as they are called, will fill in the missing drawings.
But the pencil work does not finish at the 15,000 drawings. After close scrutiny of the original drawings, to see that each one will give perfect action and not jump from one movement to another, the tracing depart-partment [sic] comes into the picture. Each drawing and movement made has to be traced on to black celluloid. This is a long tedoius [sic] business, which must be done so that the backgrounds, which are just as important as the characters, will be visible when the photographer places them in front of the highly sensitive lens.
That covers the drawings which amount to 30,000—15,000 original sketches and the same number of tracings.
We now leave the departments that are responsible for the foundation of the cartoon, and visit the colouring and inking copyists. It is the job of this classroom of copyists to fill in “Popeye’s” body with colour, taking particular care about the shading, and making certain, too, that all colours correspond with these of his fellow workers. Some colours have more than seven definite variations in shade.
Up to the present, the concentration has been entirely pointed to the making of flat-surfaced black and white cartoons, but with the advance of motion picture science, Max Fleischer and Paramount have experimented for two years in the creation of third dimension (stereoscopic) and have at last finally succeeded to get it into workable state.
The main difference between the flat and the stereoscopic is found in the backgrounds and settings, as the characters have the same process as told above. In the ordinary cartoon, the backgrounds are drawn and then photographed, but with the new process it has to be built in correct proportion and full perspectiveness. This means all sides are erected, not merely as motion picture sets, but just the portion that is visible to the camera.
These sets are then placed on a turntable, and as the action travels from one scene to another, the turntable revolves so as to keep “Popeye” and his confederaes [sic] in a continual line with the lens of the camera. The camera never moves.
And now that you are thoroughly conversant with the making of a “Popeye” cartoon, it should be easier for you to appreciate that it is not just eight or nine minutes of entertainment, but a highly skilled piece of work.

Mercer finally got screen credit for Popeye when Hanna-Barbera licensed the comic strip characters from King Features in 1978 (another one of Paramount’s cartoon writers, Larz Bourne, was story editor of the series). He told the Associated Press’ Tom Jory in 1979 that Hanna-Barbera made him audition for the series. His wife was astounded. “What?” she asked, “He has to audition for his own voice.”

Jackson Beck, the post-Fleischer voice of Bluto (and Brutus in the 1960s TV cartoons) claimed in a 1990 story in Newsday that Mercer “was the cleverest voice man I ever knew. He could do more than Mel Blanc. He played animals. He did motors. He was a little wimpy guy who never had the guts to ask for the money he deserved.”

Matalone didn’t pursue show business, other than being part of a touring company made up of some of Fred Allen’s contest winners; another person on the tour for a while was a musician by the name of Vic Mizzy. The Miami News of March 11, 1936, the day Matalone was supposed to appear on Allen’s show, called him a “Baltimore art student and chauffeur.” This is more than likely the Frank Matalone who worked 54 years as a chauffeur for the village of Hempstead, New York, and was a member of the village volunteer fire department for 41 years. He died July 19, 1976 at the age of 78. He was born in Italy on December 23, 1897. There was no mention of Fred Allen or cartoons in his newspaper obituary.

Now You See Them...

It happens. The animation checker misses something and an overlay cel doesn’t get shot, meaning something on the screen vanishes.

In Guided Muscle, released in 1955, Wile E. Coyote lays a spoon and a knife next to a pepper mill on a cactus.



Wile E. picks up the mill, and the utensils disappear.



The drawing above is held for two frames. Next drawing.



Two more frames.



Ah, they're back!

The animators are Dick Thompson, Ken Harris, Ben Washam and Abe Levitow. This was the last cartoon from the Chuck Jones unit put into production before the Warner Bros. shutdown of 1953. Maurice Noble was gone, so Phil De Guard takes over layouts and Dick Thomas from the former McKimson unit (it was eliminated 3 1/2 months before the shutdown) paints the backgrounds.